“The hell you are. Clearly something is wrong with this thing, and none of us have any idea what it is. If you damage it, we’re boned.”
“We can’t stop trying. Will’s notes are all over this place. Maybe we can-”
“We’d have as much luck trying to repair the Large Hadron Collider.” She sighed. “And I’ve seen your brother’s handwriting. We need an expert. Fortunately, I know where to get one. Dr. Sofia Amaral. Head of Monarch’s Chronon Research Division and one of the handful of authorities on your brother’s research worldwide. One of the few who risked their careers to give Will any credibility at all. She’s a believer, and she built the Monarch machine. Well, she and Dr. Kim.”
“Which means she works in the Tower.”
“Works there, lives there, almost never leaves there. She’s one of their highest value assets.”
“What about this Dr. Kim?”
“Dead,” Beth said. “Car accident. So they say. Sofia is pretty much it. Every tech-head under her is working in compartmentalized divisions on a need-to-know.”
“What about the people working with Paul at the university?”
“There were a few people who had an operational understanding that we might have been able to exploit.”
“‘Were’?”
“I kept tabs on them in case they became useful, but three weeks ago they vanished. One from the university and three from the chronon division. Which leaves Sofia, and probably Paul, and it’s not like you can invite Paul over for beers.”
“No,” Jack agreed. “But he did invite me to the gala.”
“When? Before you tried to explode him to death?”
“Even then he seemed pretty certain he wanted me to come up and check the place out.”
“That’s as good as giving yourself up. If it’s just me I can-”
“Guys,” Nick interjected. “Listen, how about we relax tonight, okay? Wait until everyone’s good and hungover tomorrow morning, then we just pick her up when she ducks out for a post-bender hamburger. Yeah?”
Beth shook her head. “If I was Paul in this situation, what with the university and Jack on the loose and knowing Jack as well as I do? I’d keep her under lock and key, trot her out for tonight’s performance, and then make her vanish till I needed her again. If we don’t grab her tonight we may not get another chance.” This was going to be a hard sell. “My cover is still good. The only person who ID’d me at the farm was Gibson, and he was in the house when it blew. I can get inside Monarch Tower, get close to Sofia, and get her out.”
“You don’t have any kind of powers.”
“I can’t die. How’s that for power?”
Nick blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Sure,” Jack retorted, “but you can be detained. You can still fail. You can’t get her out of there alone.”
“Her offices are on the top level. Just off the top level is a helipad.”
“You can fly?”
“I was told I’d need it. Seriously, Jack, me alone is our best chance.”
He put his hands up, walked away. “Fine. Whatever, Zed. You’re the boss.”
Nick and Beth sat in awkward, simmering silence as Jack climbed out of the pool and left the building. The slam of the security door echoed through every chamber in the place.
“He still wants to save his brother,” she said. “Thought he could pass on some message in 2010 that might save Will’s life in 2016. He’s frustrated, but he’ll be okay. Science isn’t his thing, really.”
Nick nodded. “Yeah, that’s gotta be hard for a guy.” Twiddled his fingers. “So,” Nick said. “You’re Zed, huh?”
14
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 7:58 P.M. Floor 49, Monarch Tower. Paul Serene’s Quarters.
The glass wall afforded Paul an angel’s view of Riverport. The town was nothing special, but neither had Alamogordo been before Oppenheimer, or Sarajevo before Gavrilo Princip, or, for that matter, Bethlehem if he wanted to be grandiose.
On official blueprints his rooms were listed as office space. When Paul had reason to leave the building he came and went via private helicopter, his existence a company secret.
Paul had never wanted for anything material. Wise investments had furnished his parents with a pleasant home and their son with the freedom to pursue a life of his choosing. The world had always been open to Paul. But it was Riverport, Massachusetts-not the universities of Europe or the Machiavellian war zones of world finance-that had shaped him. This town, of all the places on Earth, had been his crucible. Riverport had birthed him, raised him, changed him. Compressed and bound by fate, it had all happened here.
Urban camouflage fatigues lay pressed and ready, draped across the chair beside him; props to lend authenticity to the press release he was soon to be filming. He had the chair commissioned, carved from a single piece of a Fitzroya cupressoides taken from the Chilean rain forest. The tree had been over thirty-six hundred years old when Paul had it felled and turned into something he might sit upon. It was older than the Americas, than Christianity, older even than mathematics.
It was Paul’s favorite chair.
Time would end. But, perhaps, by using every part of his wealth, talent, determination, and intellect, he might liberate humanity’s fate from the end he had written for it.
“You’re doing it again.”
If he had died today there would be no one to undo what was coming. He had risked it all to save Jack, for friendship. He could not be so irresponsible again.
“Paul.”
Sofia had entered, dressed for the evening in something tight, floor-length, and Italian. Tablet in hand, mind forever on the project.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Grinding your teeth,” Sofia said.
Paul felt something stir in the waters of his body, a pulse of nausea behind his eyes. He braced.
“I could hear them popping in the hallway. You’ll need a dentist more than you need me if you don’t learn to relaaaaaaaaaaa…”
Sofia slowed and froze as time hesitated, foreshadowing an incoming stutter. They were becoming more frequent now, that was undeniable. Paul kept his composure, waited for the elongated moment to play out, and snap.
“… aaaaax. The ground-floor atrium looks beautiful, and the demonstration space is perfect. Now, there was something you wanted to show me?”
“You are about to woo the world with the wonder of chronon technology, and all of our efforts are about to conjoin. Lifeboat has a fighting chance. You’re here with me. That’s all I need.” She had noticed nothing. That brief stutter was more severe than the last instance. A sizeable one was due.
“Nervous?” he asked.
“Not at all.” She moved closer to him. “Once the world sees with their own eyes what we have achieved, how foolish our critics will seem. The reputations of Doctors Joyce and Kim will be restored, the value of Monarch stock will ascend toward Heaven, and I will finally have you to myself. Even if we have to live in the shadows for the rest of our days.”
The timing was right. God had nodded his head.
He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a slender sheaf of fire-damaged paper. “But if you could find the time to give an opinion on this, I’d be grateful.”
She gave him a curious look, lay her tablet on his ancient chair and took the filthy collection of papers with both hands. Her eyes grew wide. “The Regulator.”
“Take your time,” he said. “They’re only partial, but perhaps you…”
“Dr. Kim’s notes. Are there more?”
He wanted to tell her: Kim was a fraud. William Joyce created the Regulator. But that would be a mistake. If she knew that then she would question other truths, and force herself to analyze William’s fractured reasonings and paranoid convictions… and he needed her focused; on tonight, and on the research. If anyone could learn something new about the device at the heart of the Tower, it was Sofia. There was no one else.